The immense growth in cellular communications requires that wireless infrastructure be used as intelligently as possible. Newer wireless access networks, such as wireless access networks using the Long Term Evolution (LTE) communication protocol, are designed to use bandwidth more efficiently and to conduct communications more efficiently. In LTE, a wireless access node allocates a traffic channel and a signaling channel to a wireless User Equipment (UE), wherein the UE can exchange both signaling and communications with the wireless access node. For communications from a wireless access node to individual UEs, the LTE communication protocol uses Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) digital modulation. In OFDMA, subsets of sub-carriers are assigned to individual UEs, allowing simultaneous low data rate transmission from several users. As a result, an individual UE can be allocated a time slot and a subcarrier frequency band. For a communication from the individual UEs to the wireless access node, LTE employs Single-Carrier Frequency-Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) digital modulation.
Carrier aggregation (CA) is a new development in wireless access networks. The CA communication mode is useful where a UE requires extra bandwidth. In a carrier aggregation communication mode, the wireless access node allocates multiple traffic channels to the UE device. The UE can employ the multiple (i.e., aggregated) traffic channels to achieve a higher rate of communications.
One environment where the CA communication mode can be applied is when a UE device is within a building. Within a building, radio waves may be absorbed or reflected by the structure. As a result, a UE within a building will have difficulty in both sending signals to a wireless access node and in receiving signals from a wireless access node. A drawback of using a CA communication mode for a UE within a building is that allocating multiple traffic channels that are absorbed/reflected does not enhance communications as much as it should, and the extra allocated traffic channels are wasted.